Hoss
Yep, the Singapore deal was probably a better option.
A few points that might help you understand why things happened the way they did.
Air New Zealand got dicked by the OZ government when they back pedalled on the open skies agreement and stopped Air New Zealand operating in OZ. The NZ government was to spineless to do anything about it, and whats more allowed Ansett to operate in New Zealand
Air New Zealand's way into OZ was to buy into Ansett. When the other 50% came up for sale it made sense on the face of it to buy that too.
The fly in the ointment so to speak was Brierley Investments, who had their own reps on the Air NZ board, and wanted to sell their shareholding in Air New Zealand. Singapore Airlines were an obvious purchaser. By blocking Singapores way to buy Ansett they thought they would force Singapore's hand to buy their Air New Zealand shareholding. So Brierleys were keen to push Air NZ into the Ansett deal.
I think Air NZ were aware of Ansetts risks and could have made it work except for more political interference in Australia which resulted in Ansett being partly or completely shutdown at two crucial times.
There were parties in Oz keen to see Ansett fold, even to the point as has been suggested by some, to try and influence the decisions of the New Zealand goverment- see below.
puma pants et al
What you forget is that when the s**t hit the fan Singapore Airlines was keen to take a substantial shareholding in Air NZ which would have ensured it's survival post the Ansett debacle and may have saved Ansett as well, but our government blocked that from happening.
After doing that, where was an investor to come from to buy Air New Zealand?
The government had backed themselves into a corner and had no option but to bail out Air NZ.
Last edited by 27/09; 4th Apr 2008 at 18:34.